Partner In Crime

“This Rowland thing is ancient history,” Frank objected. “Why the sudden interest?”

“Because Special Investigator Beaumont told me he used to be married to A

“Beaumont was married to her?” Frank asked. “That’s interesting.”

“Isn’t it, though,” Joa

EARLIER AT THE HOTEL I had tried using my laptop to check my e-mail. Years ago, when Seattle PD dragged me kicking and screaming into the twentieth century and forced me to start using a computer, I hated the damned things. Now that I’m used to them, I can see they have some advantages. I’ve adjusted. On this day, however, not being able to make my co

Frustrated, I had turned to my cell phone. I wanted to talk to Ross Co

Now, having been thrown out of Frank Montoya’s office, I sat in my Sportage in the Justice Center parking lot and considered my options. Reflexively checking the readout on my cell phone, I was delighted to see that I had full signal strength. Again I dialed the Washington State Attorney General’s home number. The phone rang once and was immediately answered by a woman speaking in a torrent of rapid-fire Spanish. After a couple of futile attempts to get her to switch to English, I realized I was talking to a recording.

Thinking I must have dialed the wrong number, I dug the list of Ross Co

Cochise County, Arizona, has to be the black hole of the telecommunications universe, I told myself.

I drove back into town and wandered around until I finally located a pay phone at a Chevron station by the selfsame traffic circle that had given me such fits when I had been trying to reach the sheriff’s office the first time. With the proliferation of cell phones, it seemed like years since I’d been reduced to using an outdoor phone booth. It felt a little weird to be standing there in the open – practically in public – and dialing Ross Co

“No. He’s out,” she said. “This is his wife, Francine. Who’s calling, please? Can I take a message?”

I recalled Harry I. Ball’s stern admonition. “No messages.”

“Please tell him Beau called,” I said. That seemed i

“It’s su

That figured. The rain had cleared up in Seattle and Ross Co

In the old days, that kind of feeling-sorry-for-myself misery would have sent me straight to the nearest bar, but the Blue Moon wasn’t calling me. Instead, I decided to stay right where I was and exercise the prepaid phone card the Washington State travel agent had thoughtfully placed in my travel packet. It certainly wasn’t my fault that none of my nearest and dearest could reach me by telephone to wish me many happy returns.

First I talked to Kelly, my daughter. She and her husband live in Ashland, a small town located in southern Oregon. When Kelly dropped out of school and ran away from home mere weeks before her high school graduation, I wouldn’t have bet a plugged nickel that she’d ever go back and finish, especially since she had taken up with a young actor/musician and was pregnant besides. But it turned out marriage and motherhood were good for her. She picked up her GED right after the baby was born. Kelly’s now two years into a bachelor of fine arts program at Southern Oregon University. Not only that, my son-in-law, Jeremy, seems to be a pretty good sort, too – for an actor, that is. At least he’s gainfully employed.

Kelly wished me a happy birthday and told me about her mid-term exams before turning me over to three-year-old Kayla, who spent the next several minutes babbling incoherently to her “Goompa.”

Next I called my newly graduated and only recently gainfully employed son, Scott. He’s a neophyte electronics engineer who lives and works in the Bay Area. He and his girlfriend, Cherisse, are up to their eyeballs in plans for a wedding that is scheduled to take place sometime next spring. As we chatted on the phone, he gave me some of the pertinent wedding details, but I forgot them as soon as he told them to me. As Father of the Groom, I know all I have to do is show up, pay for the rehearsal di

Finally, I called Naomi Pepper. If I thought she’d be glad to hear from me, I should have had – as my mother would have said – another think coming. She was distant, to say the least.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I did what you said,” she told me.

“What’s that?”

“I suggested to Mother that maybe we should look into an assisted-living sort of arrangement for her. I told her about the one you mentioned, the place up on Queen A

“And?”

“She hung up on me. She even left the phone off the hook so I couldn’t call her back. I was so worried, I finally got in the car and drove over to check on her, just to make sure she was okay. When I got there, she had a whole line of pill bottles set out on the kitchen counter. She told me that if that was how I felt about it – if I didn’t care for her any more than that – there was no reason for her to go on living. If I hadn’t been there, Beau, I can’t imagine what she might have done.”

I was fairly certain that the pill bottles had been strictly for show. She wouldn’t have done a damned thing, I wanted to say, but Naomi was crying now, and I knew the poor woman had been totally outfoxed and outmaneuvered. As I said before, Naomi’s a nice person; her mother isn’t. There was no need for me to add to Naomi’s misery by telling her so.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“The only thing I can do,” Naomi replied shakily. “She’s coming to stay with me. Mother says she’ll call and start getting estimates from moving companies first thing Monday morning. I’ll have to put some of my stuff in storage to make room for hers. You’re not mad at me about this, are you, Beau?”

Heartsick, I thought. And disappointed, but not mad.

“No,” I said. “I’m not mad at all. You have to do what you have to do.”

“Thank you,” she said gratefully. “Thank you so much for saying that.” She seemed to gather herself together. “And now,” she added, “tell me all about your birthday. How’s it going?”

“About as well as can be expected,” I said.

JENNY CAME BACK FROM HER RIDE and headed directly for her room. “Are you going to want di